A Voyage To Wheen
by fisksa
Summary: old AP English high school assignment Political satire. An extra chapter to Gulliver's Travels. Written in the style of Jonathan Swift.
1. Part I

Very important A/N: The first thing I want to say is this: the fic is written in the *style* of Jonathan Swift. Which amounts to this: that the syntax is achingly long, the vocabulary is in some places obsolete, and the tone is ancient-colloquial. In other words, those who are not aficionados of 1700's politically-themed prose, you might want to turn back now.  
  
Less-important A/N: You still here? Wow; I'm amazed. You must be some Swift fan. Anyway… now for the specifics. This is a political satire. I wrote it ("wrote" is too weak a word—I poured out my sweat and blood for this thing) for an AP English assignment. I posted it on ff.n for the simple reason that I believe something I've spent this much time on (ie. more time than some of my fics) should be read by more people than an AP English III teacher whose attitude towards me is questionable.  
  
The assignment was this: construct another "book" of Swift's novel "Gulliver's Travels;" use it to satirize some aspect of human experience. If you've read "Gulliver's Travels," you'll notice that this "book" is set between Book I (Lilliput) and Book II (Brobdingnag). Which means—well, it means a lot of technical stylistic stuff that I don't want to go into right now. The focus of the satire is "governmental hypocrisy." More accurately, American governmental hypocrisy. Yes, it is current, and yes, I do delve into certain specific current events. And unless you've been living at the bottom of Loch Ness for the past six months, you know exactly what I mean. So before you proceed any further, please, for your sake and mine, read the warning below:  
  
Warning: if you're a very patriotic person, and you don't like to see America's faults satirized, turn back now.  
  
  
  
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A Voyage to Wheen  
  
  
  
Chapter I: The Author's enterprise and how he was forced to relinquish it, his misfortunes at sea, his abandonment, and the peculiar circumstances which brought him to the land of the Kee. The Kee capital city described. The Author meets several Kee.  
  
  
  
I returned to London in the month of February, with our ship docking in the midst of a great squall that had run up from the coast of France and expelled its fury over Liverpool bay. My experiences on the past voyage not having been on the whole exemplary, I resolved, upon returning, that I should attempt to live the rest of my life on the mainland, perhaps as a seamen's physician or physician's instructor. My wife concurred, and pooling our meager resources, including the capital I had obtained from my adventures, we purchased a small practice on Penny Street, a half-mile off the wharves of lower London. Business was good for a year or so, although it slaked somewhat in the winter months when all the sailors were off in the tropics; however, within a year we had amassed a fair small fortune—at least, as compared with my income as ship's surgeon. But the tide soon turned: a mild Spring and unusually protracted Summer allowed the merchants to range farther afield for longer voyages, and the sailors that returned from such ventures were the healthiest and sturdiest of all their comrades, the weaker of whom (and consequently those that would have brought me the most prosperity) had died en route. Within two years, the gains which the first year had brought were spent; and my wife and I resolved that, should the following Spring not supply prosperity, I should once again put out to sea.  
  
Three months after making this resolve, I found myself stationed as surgeon on the Starbuck, scheduled for a three-year voyage in the South Pacific, Herman Bildad, captain. She was a whaling ship, eighty feet in length and stiff-prowed, obviously built for weathering the violence of a North Atlantic sea; however, she proved herself remarkably agile in the sun- sick waters of the South, her thick hull enduring bravely both the sun- stroke and water-warp common in those areas.  
  
Within eight weeks we had rounded the Falklands, cutting easily through their choked byways of ice; in two more weeks we were sailing on a cool, fast trade-wind up the western coast of South America, following a pod of small right-whales in hopes that they would lead us to a larger gathering. This pod, consisting of one male, four females (one of whom we killed), and one calf, held closely to the rim of the continent until about 10 degrees south, at which point they veered off westward, into the dull, tranquil waters of the middle Pacific. Our captain continued to pursue them, although his decision raised much dissent among the crew, who had hoped to take a two-week respite on the coast of Peru, and furthermore, watching with anxious eyes the cloudless, sultry heavens, feared a water shortage in the windless seas of the Equator. But the captain would not be moved: he was an Englander, and possessed in unfortunate amounts the independent obstinacy characteristic of that race. The sailors' fears were soon confirmed: twelve days after setting out after the right-whales, the trade-winds failed, the sail sagged against the mast, and the Starbuck slid to a rocking halt. We were marooned, as it were, in the midst of a great barren landless desert; the azure sea washed like glass from our prow with nary a ripple until the horizon. Thus stationary, the Starbuck remained for nigh upon twenty-seven days, bobbing in the sweltering equatorial heat, while her crew waxed ever more dispirited and mutinous. At length, upon the nineteenth day, the starving and desperate sailors at last raised a revolt, one which was very easily won: for despite the captain's stubbornness, he was an honest man, and recognized the dire misfortune which he had brought upon his comrades. His only resistance was verbal, and it was more a plea of forgiveness and for lenience than it was a reprimand. The mutinous crew, however, were intent on revenge. They desired to set him afloat without food or water in one of the longboats; when I objected on the grounds that this was a cruel, inhumane punishment, the rebel leader looked at me askance and queried as to whether I should like to join the captain. Of course I did not, and said so: however by then the idea had already been planted in that crew's shifty minds, and the following day, when the captain was set adrift, I sat miserably beside him in the longboat. I believe now that the crew was motivated by more than simple spite: I lacked seamen's skills, and was therefore a liability, for though I could not row, I consumed as much food and drink as any strong sailor.  
  
Days pass slowly when water is scarce, and my sojourn in the longboat beside my ousted captain seemed to stretch for three weeks, rather than the three days which it truly spanned. The captain himself neither rewarded nor chastised me for my part in the mutiny (which he must have guessed to some degree); in fact, he paid little heed to me whatsoever and instead constrained himself to stare blandly out over the open water, dispirited and hopeless. Many have written that the condition of a man's spirit affects that of his body, and I found our captain to fit this standard: he died quickly, on the second day. I believe he desired it, for on the first day he gave this message to me, and they were the only words he ever spoke that entire time: Good surgeon, should Fortune choose to smile on you and return you to our beloved England, I would beg you to relay my love and apologies to my dear wife and little children, who no doubt shall be bereft in my absence. I swore to him that I would do so, had I the chance, and he spoke no more. His death followed shortly thereafter, coming at noon the next day, when the sky dipped most swelteringly towards the sea. I regret that I possessed not the means to make a proper funeral; I could only speak a small Latin eulogy and unceremoniously heave his corpse overboard, where it floated bloatedly for full five hours before at last becoming waterlogged and sinking. Seeing this, I feared for my own life, for I had little water and even less food. But I soon found my anxieties to be baseless: the evening of the second day brought a quickening of wind, and with it, maroon and ponderous against the horizon, hulking storm clouds. That night a tempest arose the likes of which I had never known, and all the more violent for the pitch blackness in which it occurred. I clung to the sodden boards of the longboat, my body across the oars so I might not lose them, while all around me Nature vented her fury: the sea lashed me about like flotsam, the wind scraped the longboat attempting to dislodge me. For ten hours this continued, and I know not how far I traveled that night; only that, when the clouds began to glow from behind with dawn's grey, I looked over the prow and found a great landmass shimmering not a mile distant from my position.  
  
My joy at this sight was immense, and I think it aided in the strength with which I seized the oars and rowed towards the land. As I neared, however, I began to note something very peculiar about the water surrounding the isle (for so I presumed the land at this point): the shallower the water became, the muddier it grew, and the more its aquamarine hue faded, becoming lighter and greener, not the pristine emerald of some tropical seas, but a yellowish, unwholesome color, like that of old hay. By the time my keel scraped ground, the water around me shone sun-yellow, thick and staining. It made a curious clucking, glugging noise as it washed ponderously over the beach, and was reluctant to leave it, the waves drawing back heavily; I found that when I deserted my longboat and had to step through it to achieve land, the water clung to my breeches and shoes, thoroughly dying them a yellow hue. However, I was too preoccupied with finding a source of fresh water to pay much heed to these abnormalities; later I recalled them and realized how peculiar they really must have seemed. The beach on which I stood sloped gently upward until it encountered a rocky precipice, crumbling in many places and gummed in others by the same yellow substance which colored the water; beyond this precipice stretched a flat plane, greyish in hue, and tufted irregularly by hard bunches of grass; in its hazy distance I could make out a curious outcrop, quite all, of what I guessed must be stone (although I quickly discovered this first impression to be erroneous). Beyond this moor mountains rose, their peaks concealed by thick masses of lemon-colored cloud. No plantlife save the grass could be seen, a characteristic in my favor, for the absence of trees and shrubs allowed me an unobstructed view of the beach, furthermore one in which I could find water very easily; not ten minutes after landing, I espied a small stream trickling between the rocks a quarter of an English mile to my left, which I made for quickly. This stream's water was, thankfully, quite unlike that of the ocean, carrying only a slight yellowish tint and being on the whole fresh and cleanly-looking. I had bent down to drink, and was just cupping the water to my lips, when a sudden noise startled me, and a shadow fell over my form from behind. I turned very slowly around, in hopes that the cautiousness and gentleness of the motion should dissuade the creature behind me (whether it be man or beast) from a premature attack; when this gesture was complete, and no attack had been attempted, I found myself staring at quite the strangest-looking being I had ever chanced to lay eyes on. It (or he, rather, as I later learned) was something like a prodigious bird: the height of a tall Englishman, about six feet two inches, covered with a downy coat of yellowish feathers. His forehead sloped steeply downward to apex in a great, hard beak, something in shape like that of an English chicken's; his uncovered feet were three-pronged, brown, and clawed at each end; his posture was not totally bipedal, being leant about twenty degrees forward; his facial features were broad, with beady wide-set eyes which he cocked to either side when viewing objects head-on. His most striking features, however, were his arms, which did not exist in the conventional sense, but rather were replaced by a set of extraordinary wings, eighteen foot span (I later learned that a normal male's wingspan is seventeen foot). These he tucked behind him, smoothly but vertically, in the manner of a kestrel or peregrine falcon.  
  
Whilst I crouched silently before this animal, pondering all the while on whether he was a creature of reason, he likewise examined me, cocking his head jerkily as birds do when investigating something, and shifting his substantial weight from one talon to the other. When two minutes had passed, he seemed to complete his assessment, whereupon he voiced a guttural screech, kraaee reriee when converted to the English alphabet, and motioned with his left talon that I should stand. I did so, now fully convinced that this being was reasonable; and so that he might see that I too was rational, and understood him, I gestured towards myself and said the word human several times. He responded by touching his breast- feathers with his nimble left talon and repeating the word Kee; thus I learned the name of the species on whose continent I had landed.  
  
After these crude formalities had been exchanged, my guide (as I shall call him now, for I did not learn his true name until much later) made two hopping steps backwards, and, again resorting to the use of his left talon, motioned me thither; but before I could take one step, he unfurled his great wings and leapt into the air, flapping vigorously to free himself from the earth's pull. I, who was unused to the sight of such a large living creature taking flight, edged backwards, towards the stream, whereupon my guide (observing that I was not following) alighted and once again hopped towards me. His manner was perplexed: obviously he could not fathom my frightened reaction, nor my inability to pursue him; as if he, possessing wings, naturally expected that every other rational being should possess them as well. Because of this simple prejudice, it took me a long while to make clear to him the situation of my dilemma, and many elaborate hand-gestures; but finally I succeeded, and he contented himself to hop swiftly but somewhat awkwardly along the ground while I went behind at a fast walk. In this way we covered approximately seven miles; as we traveled, our destination became increasingly clearer to me: we were headed for that distant outcrop of tall structures which I had noted earlier, and which I had construed to be obelisks of stone. In fact this was no natural phenomenon at all, but a city, the capital of the Kee land, the grand metropolis of Heekreet. No greater than Dublin it was in circumference, and far less than London in population; however the soaring height of its closely-built structures lent it an air of grandeur equal to that of England's greatest cities, for the Kee were a people wholly of the air.  
  
I shall now, to satisfy my undoubtedly curious reader, present a description of that majestic conurbation whereto I was led by my Kee guide. Heekreet is a thoroughly industrialized city, whose borders, unlike that of the normal English town, are very sharply defined; I once, to experience in full this distinction, stood with one foot within the city and one foot without it, and felt the boundary myself: Heekreet has no horizontal suburbs, for the plain rolls up to crash abruptly against the first of the skyrises. The city's operations are vertical, and defined in general by class: the gentry (I cannot say nobility, for these people are a democracy) house in the vertical center of the buildings, about 9,000 feet from the ground, where the air is cleanest; the working class nests below them at 6,000 feet; storage, septic, and other utilities occupy the considerably more dirty area at 3,000 feet; while the upper halves of most of the buildings are economic areas, with wares-shops and other small enterprise being at 12,000 feet, and the last 6,000 feet of space concerned with the heavy industrial work. I disliked flying in these sections, for on a whole they are choked and dusty, and filled with the same yellow ash which, I now presume, colored the seawater and to an extent the air.  
  
I shall not attempt, for fear of boring my readers, to provide a fuller description of the physicalities of Kee society, nor of my early adventures with my guide, and the many difficulties which the differences between Kee life and my English one presented. Suffice to say, that my guide conceived an ingenious method for conveying me between the buildings, which were my chief hurdle in navigating the Kee world: he and another Kee would take a long hammok, woven of a certain river-weed, and carry it between them, while I would cling to it as best I could. Although this method of transportation somewhat unnerved me at first, as use builds confidence, I soon grew comfortable with it. My guide, who was called Ieer in his own language (the speech of which I was able to learn with surprising quickness), lived in the vicinity of 7,000 feet, not a peasant of the meanest sort, yet far from the genteel class which nested 2,000 feet above. His home, which was rectangular, resembled the cinder-blocks with which we construct our own English homes; he shared it with his nest-mate and twin, Reei. Although from the first day we met my relationship with Ieer was one of mutual trust, and later friendship, yet my dealings with his twin were from the very beginning disagreeable, as if he harbored some previous grievance against me. I suspect that the resentment he bore sprung from a sort of angry jealousy, that Ieer held me in so high an esteem, when Reei considered me to be no more than an ugly featherless Kee, and not worthy of his twin's praise. For most of my stay in this household, however, I paid little heed to Reei's umbrage, a dire misjudgment on my part, and one which would cost me dearly later. 


	2. Part II

Chapter II: Ieer's employment described. The author attends a speech by an eminent politician, who then invites the author and his comrades for supper. Description of the Kee electoral system.  
  
  
  
I remained under Ieer's care for close upon three months, during which time I was able to learn both the language and many of the customs of the Kee race to a satisfactory degree. I conducted many conversations with Ieer to this effect; the first were primarily lingual, in which I would point out an object to discover its name; the second (and more lengthy) put my new vocabulary to tentative use. I learned much of Ieer's profession in particular; he is a government employee (the Kee government being a strict democracy) and his occupation consists of what he called krak eiir, or environmental painting. For you see, as he explained to me, our noble government of Wheen (for that is what Ieer's nation calls itself) cares for nothing more than the beloved air in which we make our homes and the beloved land which lies beneath them. We have built our houses to touch the sky, and we live and work among the clouds, from whence we can view the full breadth of the country we so love. We treasure nothing more than the pristine beauty of our surroundings. Our righteous government, of which I am most blessed to be a part, has therefore commissioned a sect of Kee with a most precious task, which is preserving and magnifying the our country's beauty. My sect and I are employed in painting landscapes of great excellence, which are set by the government around the city and in the citizen's homes, to give the public proof of our administration's devotion to the beauty of our environment. These artworks are generally hung in the upper regions of our cities, for in those areas it becomes hard to distinguish the land twenty feet beyond one's beak, for the splendid progress of our erudite industrial pursuits. But with our paintings glorifying the wall of every factory, this is irrelevant, for our workers can see, there on their work-place, spreading the irrefutable symbol of our government's devotion to our homeland's beauty. And truly, if the mind can paint even more spectacular vistas than nature herself can produce, what need is there of nature at all; indeed I might even presume to say that Heekreet's elite, they who inhabit our middle-airs and therefore have the view of Wheen's genuine landscape, are at an obvious disadvantage to our poorer classes, who possess quite a nobler replacement. He inquired of me whether this was, indeed, an enlightened method. I agreed that it was, and that a nation as sophisticated and conscious as Wheen must surely do wonders for the loveliness of its surroundings.  
  
Political systems being one of my foremost interests, I desired to know more of Ieer's government; and he, conciliatory but none too informed, gave me what little satisfaction he was able. He explained that Wheen's government was a representative democracy, or republic, in which the citizens of Wheen elected the officials they wished to rule. Therefore, he informed me proudly, every Wheenish Kee, male, female, and child, was not ruled by the government, but was the government. In this system, he, Ieer, was as important to Wheen as was the most prominent politician: he, by vote, could veto laws, approve laws, impeach legislators, and instill programs. My curiosity aroused, I inquired of Ieer what sort of political actions he had recently taken; he laughed and told me none. He explained that he, like most Kee, did not quite understand the government, and so left all direct legislation to the elected officials. He also made me a promise, that, Wheen's elections being held in two weeks, he should fly me to a political rally so that I might experience Wheen's government first- hand. Perhaps, said Ieer, this might help me understand Wheenish politics to a greater degree of satisfaction than he, a poor krak eiir, could provide.  
  
Ieer being a very honest individual, he upheld his promise, and two weeks hence I found myself seated—if that indeed be a proper term for my rather unique position—in one of Heekreet's public plazas, an open area of 1,000 foot square, which lay in the very center of the city, about 6,500 feet above the ground. Ieer and Reei had flown me thence by means of my weed-hammock, and once there, strung it between two of the roosts, or wooden perches, which serve as seating for the Kee populace. These roosts are about six foot long each, and constructed of a very hard, smooth wood; they project at regular geometric intervals (about five feet apart) from the buildings which surround the square. The Kee politician who would soon commence his oration possessed no raised platform from which he might orate; in this instance our ground-based human lecturers are at a distinct disadvantage to those of the Kee, who traditionally stay aloft when delivering their speeches, so that they can vary their position during their presentation and therefore impact a greater proportion of their audience. He who would speak today was a politician of great consequence, I was informed by Ieer: the leading candidate in the upcoming elections, and a Kee of great dignity and eloquence. His speeches, Ieer elaborated, are the most well-praised and well-constructed in the country, the most beautiful and the least believed. Many say Wheen has never before possessed an orator of such singular slyness of tongue, whose falsities are so magnificent and whose fancies so thoroughly unbelievable; it is the general consensus of the populace that he shall easily win this election, for his opponent is known to slip sometimes into truth.  
  
Before I proceed any further, I think it best to explain to my gracious readers, whose patience I beg if I lapse into tedium, the exact means by which Wheen politicians are elected. This requires me to present a small amount of Wheenish history. When the country was new—an ineffective and naïve republic, as Ieer told me—it elected its statesmen on the basis of the positions they held on certain issues, and the promises they made to address these issues during their campaigns. However, these oaths were often grand and optimistic in the extreme, and seldom concurred with the actions the politicians later took in office. This unbalance upset Wheen's populace, which, in those days, mistook a politician's promise for some surety of later action. Whereupon a public decision was made, which none of the politicians recognized officially but all followed unofficially, that henceforth electives should be chosen based on what message constituted the exact opposite of their campaign promises. To elaborate: when a prominent statesman wishes to run for office, he must present to the Wheen populace an opinion known to be totally incompatible with his future actions, and one so fancifully impossible, were he to be elected, that the thought is to be almost laughable. For example, were a Wheen politician to take the stand and swear to raise tariff duties, the voting Kee would elect him knowing that he shall under no circumstances raise the tariff; in fact, that he shall probably, upon entering office, lower it. This system has matured to a point at which it is completely infallible: any Wheenish politician that attempts to gain office through veracity is looked upon by the populace as a Kee to be avoided at all costs, who lacks art and class, and should never by any means be elected.  
  
I shall not bore the reader with the particulars of that day's speech; enough to note that they were pretty standard political falsities, nothing which I think my readers have not heard before, dealing with such issues as the environment, the economy, foreign affairs, and any number of wars, past and present. However when the speech was concluded, something peculiar occurred: this outstanding politician approached myself, Ieer, and Reei, and inquired to know what sort of creature I was, and how I had come—the expression is literal in Wheen—under my companions' wings. Of this Ieer, whose answer was stuttering (for his tongue stalled for a moment in awe at being addressed by such an illustrious Kee), gave him a short account, whereupon the statesman invited all three of us to accompany him to his nest, where he would desire a further inquiry. Ieer quickly consented, and in less than an hour's time we had been conveyed to the candidate's sumptuous domicile, which fortunately lay not far off, being in Heekreet at exactly 6,899 feet. The politician, who begged us to address him by his surname, Krraesee (for, he said, Wheen is a republic and as such no distinctions of privilege should be made), then gave us a fine dinner, which although it lacked milk, meat, and eggs, was abundant in fresh fruit and warm bread. Afterwards he found means to occupy Ieer and Reei, who were so unused to Krraesee's life of high luxury that they easily agreed to the distraction. Nor were they accustomed to life as Krraesee saw it, that is, life as practiced in the middle, cleaner sections of Heekreet, where only Wheen's rich, elite, or politically inclined tended to house. Myself Krraesee led away to a different room, which served as his study. Shelves full of manuscripts lined its walls, save for the areas where carpeted perches curved from wide alcoves; its floor was cleaner by far than any I had yet seen in Heekreet (for the Kee, who need no floors, devote less care to them than humans do), and it was obviously a place of efficient business. Apologizing melodiously for the room's scarcity, on which I, having known only Ieer's comparatively meager lifestyle, quickly reassured him, he bade me take a seat wherever I should see fit. I chose a clean, open area near the window, through the which I could view Wheen's spectacular eastern mountain range, at that time wreathed in thick yellow clouds which strongly resembled those engulfing Heekreet's upper industrial section. I noted with some curiosity that in this middle city, both the inner and outer walls of the domiciles remained empty; apparently Ieer and his comrades did not need to paint scenes of beauty to reassure their wealthy, who could witness Wheen's loveliness firsthand, but only for their smoky upper and lower public. 


	3. Part III

Chapter III: The author's discussions with the politician Krraesee on several subjects. The nature of Wheen's current war with its neighbor described. The great love of liberty among the Wheenish people.  
  
  
  
After assuring my comfort, Krraesee alighted on the carpeted perch nearest my position; he then proceeded to inquire after, in a conciliatory manner, my origin, race, history, and other such particulars. My reader having previously received these details in the account of my first voyage, I shall not reiterate them. The next subject of our discussion was by my own choosing: Wheenish government, on which I begged the noble politician to enlighten me further; for, I told him, although Ieer be an excellent krak eiir and an honest friend, he, like most of his peers, knows little of politics save that he should occasionally vote in them. Krraesse obliged me with the fervor inherent to his speech-making profession; when he inquired of me where he should begin, and I responded that I should like to discuss any subject of most current interest, he cawed with laughter and asked whether I thought a war was of any interest; I said it was, and he laughed again; after which he proceeded to give the following narrative:  
  
Know you, Emuwe (which is his name for me, the Kee race lacking the capacity to pronounce the consonant l), that the city in which you now perch is the grandest and most powerful in all the land, and her citizens the happiest, cleanliest, and proudest. Likewise know that this city serves as the capital of our goodly nation Wheen, the pride and model of all nations, for unlike other regimes, which be unjustly ruled by monarchs or the powerful elite, Wheen is a republic where the population chooses how it shall be ruled. Our Kee are the freest in the world, for no matter what station of life they hail from—from those of the middle airs to those of the uppermost—they enjoy the privilege of voting for politicians such as myself. And the vote is not Wheen's only libertarian statute; nay, in common law as well as elections we possess the fairest nation on earth, for we are free to speak, worship, and convene as we choose. Now, know you also this sad fact: that Wheen occupies not alone this continent. Just beside her, indeed just beyond her western mountain range, lies a small hilly country by the name of Taeean. This regime constitutes everything that Wheen is not: an elitist group of military dictators rule Taeean with an iron wing, who impose the strictest and cruelest laws upon their citizens, disallow all public participation in government, starve and cheat the populace while living themselves in luxury, and brutally murder those who oppose them. Especially atrocious are their methods of execution, which include drowning, beating, induced disease, and unannounced release of mite- bombs (which are a kind of horrible forced feather infestation, developed by Wheen itself but evilly stolen by Taeean) on unsuspecting and unoffending civilians. This nation, so cruel, dirties and insults the great free state of Wheen by its mere presence.  
  
At this place in the narrative Krraesee paused for breath; I used the momentary silence to query of him whether Wheen's war with Taeean—the situation which I had by now presumed—was begun for the purpose of ending the practices which Wheen so despised, and whether her great benevolence had provided aid to the stricken Taeean populace.  
  
Krraesee emphatically assured me that this was so, and that Wheen's current war on Taeean was of course intended to halt those evil practices of its government. However, he noted, the war's actual initiation was slightly different. In truth, it is an event which ignites the blood of every Wheenish citizen like no other incident, and one a thousand times more atrocious than Taeean's brutal treatment of its populace. You see, Emuwe, Taeean's regime is wholly corrupt, consumed throughout by greed, jealousy, and hatred. They look upon our prosperous and democratic nation with contempt, and for years have plotted our destruction; to this end, not two years ago, they concocted a scheme of such unspeakable evil that it pains me to relate: Taeean's regime discharged unto one of our largest cities a plague of especially vicious mite, which consumed an indescribably appalling number of our blameless citizens, full three-thousand count, before we were able to extinguish it. Only a nation of the basest nature, friend Emuwe, could so callously slaughter so many innocents; inarguably, it was Wheen's duty as a righteous nation to respond. Upon which incidence we waged immediate and pressing war on Taeean, for the sake of our noble revenge (and incidentally to help free that nation's stricken populace). Our war, although ongoing, is now proceeding well: we have to this date dropped approximately eight-thousand mite-bombs on Taeean, thereby eradicating maybe twenty of their regime's leaders (although sadly their supreme dictator has thus far eluded our grasp). The extreme sophistication and intelligence of Wheen's military technology has allowed us to achieve this goal with a minimum of waste: we estimate that a mere five-thousand Taeeanish civilians have been killed since the commencement of our attacks.  
  
And do not for a moment believe, friend Emuwe, that Wheen has neglected the common Taeeanish Kee in its illustrious campaign; on the contrary, Wheen has created a system designed for the relief of the oppressed Taeean populace. In an effort to stem the brutality of the mite- infestations which the Taeean government daily lays upon its Kee, we have assembled a squadron of our noblest soldiers, whose duty it is to fly unarmed over Taeean, laden with durable packages of mite-salve, which they are then instructed to release over heavily populated areas. A small note, scribed in the languages of both states, and decorated with corresponding illustrations for the illiterate (for there are many such in Taeean), is included in each package, which informs the receiver that this mite-salve originated in the republic of Wheen. In this manner the Taeeanish population shall understand that our quarrel lies not with them, but with their corrupt government; and that the bombs we shower upon their country are directed towards a small and scattered group of evil dictators, and not themselves; that in actuality our primary objective in this war, for which we strive the hardest, concerns their own emancipation. For Wheen, as I have stressed, is a republic, and therefore the defender of that most sacred right, freedom, wherever the battle may lead us.  
  
Once again Krraesee was forced to pause for a breath, his zealous patriotism having quite winded him, and into this space I projected a second question, which was whether Wheen, in its great benevolence and love of liberty, had offered any such mite-salve to the Taeeanish Kee prior to the war, when they were under identical mite-persecution from their own terrible government. Krraesee responded in the negative, and gave the reasoning that Wheen did not conduct flying aid-missions above Taeean prior to Taeean's attack for the obvious reason that such an action would have violated Taeean's territorial integrity, and Wheen, defender of liberty, should never presume to infringe on another nation's rights. This answer somewhat perplexed me, and again I ventured to query of him, this time how the current situation did not constitute such a violation. His answer, delivered a trifle curtly, was that the Taeear government having attacked first, it opened itself to all manner of retaliatory action from Wheen, and now that Wheen was felling them with its bombs, it was perfectly agreeable to aid the impoverished and oppressed Taeeanish citizens.  
  
Krraesee continued, in a long narrative the which I shall, for risk of boring my readers, omit, to laud Wheen's noble aims, its utter selflessness in taking up the cause of the poor Taeeanish Kee, its humble pride in its perpetuation of the divine right of freedom, its extreme altruism in its selfless donations of mite-salve to the Taeeanish citizens, and its careful sophistication in technology which allows it to continue the war with a small number of civilian deaths. He then revisited his nation's unmatched love for individual liberty, and cited as proof the statute of free speech which existed, by vote, among his contemporaries; that any Kee of Wheen might say as he wish, and that the government was powerless to stop him; that in this particular the country was ruled entirely by the people, who by majority always prevailed. That this attitude was exemplified in the fact that almost every Wheenish citizen adored his country almost to distraction, and those who publicly dissented, and did not agree with the war nor Wheen's role in it, faced civic pressure which generally made them keep their silence, for fear of abridging their countrymen's right to believe what their comrades had decided, by majority, to be the correct public opinion.  
  
The noble politician concluded our discussion by presenting to me a bright vision of the future, in which Wheen, winning the war, would erect in Taeean a republican government, as liberated and content as Wheen itself. To this end Wheen's politicians, being the sagest in all the land, would appoint a chief governor to head Taeean's new regime, and a congress to accompany him; and this congress would labor to mold Taeean into a lesser version of Wheen. Finally, when the new government was stable, it would relinquish its authority to the native Kee, that they might elect their next officials from among those provided by Wheen (though by no means could they vote to change the established method of rule). This process, he noted, may take ten years or twenty, but it shall inevitably occur, and we shall succeed in spreading Wheen's inalienable rights to an even wider range, and that soon, Wheen's political system—her eloquent candidates, her undisputable equality, her environmentalism, her altruism, and most importantly her liberty—shall dominate the whole continent to the extent that one part will be indistinguishable from another, all free, all happy, and all the same, from sea to shining sea. 


	4. Part IV

Chapter IV: The discussion continues. The nature of Wheenish law and Wheenish political parties. The author discovers the Kee's relation to humanity.  
  
  
  
Thus for a full six hours I diverted myself, and am pleased to relate that my knowledge of Wheen's government was greatly increased; however I do not presume my readers share this fascination with matters of state, who no doubt possess sufficient experience with government in their own land; and so I shall not recount the whole of my conversations with Krraesee, but only two more avenues of discourse which I found of particular interest.  
  
The first topic concerns Wheenish law, a matter both flexible and ambiguous, though not near so elastic as the law itself. Although I could not, obviously, in such a protracted period attempt to grasp the subtleties, nor even the basic concepts, of Wheenish law, Krraesee narrated to me an account, which I now retell, with the hope that the reader can glean from it some general idea of life beneath Wheenish command. Excluding of course politicians and the noble krak eiirs, Wheen's most respected vocation is called a keekaw; its duties translate roughly to the English profession of medicine, and include healing the wounded, caring for the sick, and administering mental aid. The set of laws governing this career are strict (as all medical laws ought to be), erected relatively recently by an anxious government, which instructed its governing body, a congress, to construct a system designed for the greatest benefit of the trusting patient. The congress put to admirably; however, when the law finally emerged, it possessed a number of visible holes, which the keekaw practitioners might use to justify otherwise-illegal treatment of the aforementioned trusting patients. No doubt these discrepancies were due to the extreme pressure under which the congress was forced to work, although some rather unpatriotic Kee have suggested that the pressure of rich funds against the keekaws' purses—or rather the prospect of its relief into the purses of certain conciliatory congressmen—was indeed the true explanation. Whatever the truth, congress, though it most assuredly was not ignorant of the law's discrepancies, allowed the bill to pass with little resistance; but not four years later a massive scandal erupted among the keekaw community, in which the most successful of the keekaw corporations had utilized the law in an ignoble fashion, to subject its patients to sub-par treatment at an unfairly high price. Whereupon the Wheen congress loudly and publicly condemned this corporation's dishonorable actions; furthermore the congress reconvened and, with much fuss, amended the laws which they had created not six years earlier, to prevent such an indignity from ever again occurring. Krraesee cited this episode as a testament to the congress's devotion to self-improvement: by condemning a practice they had made possible through law, and then changing the law to accommodate their new position, the congress evidenced a will for constant improvement and a true devotion to its citizens.  
  
The second matter runs somewhat longer, and concerns Wheen's political parties, of which there exist over sixty, although only two are considered strong or large enough to be viable for any high office. These I neglect to describe in detail, for the shortness of my stay in that country prohibited a complete comprehension of either, especially because the primary filter through which my education was conveyed was Krraesee, a staunch member of the conservative Sirar party and at that time its candidate for high governor: I ergo had little hope of receiving an objective view on either the Sirar or its opposition party. When, however, Krraesee related to me the basic political philosophy of his party (to give the reader a general picture, I might compare the Sirar to our Whigs), I was surprised to find that it correlated little, almost naught at all, with Krraesee's own beliefs, which he had presented to me—truthfully, for he was not addressing the public—in an earlier talk. I begged him to inform me why this should be so, and as always he eloquently obliged, beginning very simply that his beliefs were of no importance to his campaign, nor, were he elected, would they enjoy much significance in his governing. He stressed again the importance of Wheen's status as a republic, in which majority rule took all precedence; that just because he believed with all his soul that something was black instead of white, he was bound to uphold the majority's view, though it insist what he perceive as black to be indeed white. Difference of opinion reaps dissent, and dissent is the death-knell of the political party; and the health of the party always precedes that of the state: a politician, when faced with a choice between what his party desires him to do and what he believes is beneficial to the country, should always opt for the party option. He further informed me that this was the greatest danger of supporting an idea which he fiercely believed in, instead of upholding the positions of his party, which, though he feel they be detrimental to the populace as a whole, are his duty as a politician to support; because in a sophisticated system of government, all ideas must derive from and be agreed on as a whole, for the society being a democracy, it would be very dangerous were even one statesmen to do freely what he believes is right, instead of bowing to greater opinion.  
  
At length the discussion, when we had momentarily exhausted the subjects of politics and war, moved to another topic, whence I directed it, for my interest in the field rivals that of my love for linguistics: science, and more specifically, anatomy. Though Krraesee was by no means a keekaw, he, as many practitioners of the social sciences do, took up anatomy as an avocation, and for this purpose kept in his possession a number of small medical texts, mainly treatises on the origin and evolution of his own species. At my request he allowed me the privilege of browsing this small library; and while the manuscripts abounded with technical terms, which gave me a fair amount of trouble in deciphering them, with Krraesee's aid and my own excellent memory I learned a great deal. Because I am pretty sure my audience has not my zeal for the subject, I will decline to give details; however in one instance I think it critical for me to relate my findings, for they place the Kee and their continent in a certain genealogical, perhaps even historical, context. Whilst I was reviewing the various diagrams, webs, charts, and illustrations which Krraesee's texts provided, I slowly came to realize an astonishing fact: that the Kee were not some natural quirk, an obscure eddy in the vast primordial gene pool, but in fact close kin to humans, closer even than the extinct Neanderthals; for excluding the broad triangular beak and lack of teeth, the Kee skull-structure corresponds precisely to a modern Englishman's; the Kee wing is endowed with truncated, hollowed digits which I am near certain were once fingers; the rough Kee knees, unlike those of other birds', bend outward; and the Kee neck is long and slender, coated with sleek small feathers, quite dissimilar to the short, stocky, feather- stuffed necks of all true birds. I could even venture to say that the Kee are in fact a subspecies of homo sapiens, and not be committing too gross an inaccuracy: they have simply developed bird-like characteristics in accordance with their airy environment, much as the Eskimo, who lives in the cold wilds of Northern America, has adopted a smaller body stature and thicker, hairier skin so that he may preserve his body heat. Were the English race to evolve upward and take to the skies, I am convinced that a Kee-like form should be its most probable route; therefore it can be argued that the Kee represent an advanced state in human evolution, or at least, should humanity choose a path similar to that of the Kee, what our race has the potential one day to become. 


	5. Part V

Chapter V: The author, through an accident of malice, is cast into the sea. His rescue by a passing fishing vessel. He returns to England.  
  
  
  
Now the discussions on the previous pages representing a collection of conversations which occurred over the space of hours, the curious reader is perhaps wondering, during those long periods when I conversed with Krraesee, what means Ieer and Reei found to divert themselves. Alas, I have no answers; for immediately upon our departure, the length of which was silent (for what reason, again, I know not), the twins bore up my hammock and began to fly slowly home. It was during this time that Reei, whom I had previously never heard utter a single word in my favor, suggested that he and Ieer make a short diversion to the ocean, which, he reasoned, I must miss, being a creature of those baser elements, earth and water, and unused to an enlightened life in the air. Ieer, whose attitude towards his twin remained ever trustful, agreed; and I, unknowing of the malice which prompted Reei's suggestion, seconded the notion, for as with all good falsities, therein lay a grain of truth: I did long to once again lay eyes upon water. Therefore Ieer and Reei turned in their course, bearing out south-east from Heekreet to the beach, sluggish with the incoming tide, and over the ocean, whose colors progressed from yellow, to green, to finally blue as we gained further distance from Wheen. When land was no longer distinctly visible, lying instead as an indistinct yellow haze across the horizon, I felt a sudden dip in altitude on my left side; which was immediately followed by a sudden jolt, and a sickening feeling of vertigo: Reei had released the section of my hammock which it was his duty to secure. I heard Ieer's screech of alarm, and felt the buffet of his wings as he desperately tried to recover me; but he was powerless to stop my descent, and all too soon his voice shrank away into the clouds. I fell for roughly thirty seconds, a perilously long time, and was consequently barely able to keep my consciousness upon striking the water. Thankfully I did remain awake, and, kicking off my shoes, I began to swim back towards Wheen, which I knew to be the only land for miles, and therefore my only possibility of survival; when suddenly from the corner of my eye there appeared a vision so heavenly that at first I construed it to be a figure of my own imaginings: a sail, with the union jack flying bravely above it.  
  
She was called the Benedick, a small, hard-nosed fisher-sloop of Dublin, come to this latitude by sheer chance in a storm, while pursuing the annual migration of bluefin tuna down the coast of Peru. Her captain, to whose sharp eye I owed my life, had been first to espy me and order me pulled in with the fishing nets. He was a pleasant man by the name of Patrick Beatrice, rather young for a captainship, red-headed, and with a comical disposition that at first led him to question the veracity of my tale. However I soon convinced him of my candor by withdrawing and presenting some of the artifacts which I had chanced to possess when misfortune befell; these included six of Ieer's primary feathers, a foot in length each (during my stay he underwent a molt), some talon-clippings of Reei, and a treatise on Wheenish history which Krraesee had generously lent me for further study, and which I could now, unfortunately, never return.  
  
Thankfully for myself, the Benedick was already sailing for home when I came aboard; we reached Dublin with fair weather and good auspices, and incidentally a heavy bounty of fish for my temporary crewmates. Captain Beatrice and I parted company amicably, he finding me service back to England on a stocky cargo-hauler called the Hero; for his services I made him a gift of three of Ieer's feathers, and all of the money in my possession, the latter of which he would not accept. I arrived in England after an exodus of one year and a half on August 25, to find I was now the father of three, my wife having given birth while I was away. Unfortunately, my family's financial situation remained the same as ever, that is, poor; and furthermore this voyage not having been, on the whole, as prosperous as that to Lilliput, circumstances would necessitate that I return to sea within the next year. However, I will confine this narrative to the third part of my tales.  
  
***************  
  
The End  
  
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A/N: You're still here? Still alive? Good gracious, I'm amazed—I wrote the darn thing and I know I was dead after writing it. And for all of you who are wondering, yes, I got high marks for this… thing. A+. Based on what I know of Jonathan Swift and my English teacher's grading system, I'm guessing that the grade reflects how boring the piece was: the more boring the piece, the higher the grade. That either says something about me, Jonathan Swift, or my English teacher. Or all three.  
  
***Anyway, per usual, I ask you, my good and exceedingly patient readers, to please review. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Flames will be tolerated, but only if they are directed at Jonathan Swift, who takes the ultimate blame for the indescribable tedium of this writing assignment. "Patriotic" flames will produce a rolling of eyes. Yes, to all of you out there, I do appreciate living in America; I just think, with all of our vaunted "freedoms," we might do a touch better job of managing our own affairs.  
  
Thank you to everyone who reviews!  
  
~Jen 


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